One of the trend that hit town around mid last year in Japan was Mosiac Bento.

Through geometrical neat arrangements of the ingredients, the result was a highly attractive elegant sushi bento.

I fell in love with the mosaic bento design. So so gorgeous and  not to mention, easy to achieve too. Just prepare a variety of ingredients that you like, colorful will be best, and cut them into squares and arrange them in the box.

For me, I obviously prefer them cute and kawaii. ;P haha so I made quite a no of mosaic bento designs.

The Sanrio one above remains one of my favourites.

When October month was around the corner, I made a Halloween inspired Mosaic Bento.

Knowing that some of you may not really consume rice in your usual diet, I made a sandwich mosaic bento too.

During my trip to Bangkok (Thailand) to teach cooking, I discovered a quaint little tea store that sold really lovely homemade spreads with flavours like matcha, houjicha and even pickled sakura.

They tasted amazing and also had lovely colors. So I used them for this animal theme sandwich mosaic bento.

What was even more amazing was that my Mosaic bento creations caught the eye of the producers of Bento Expo – a special bento programme by NHK World  again.

So they came over to film me and my bento making for the programme – Special Episode.

If you missed it, don’t worry. You can catch the episodes again at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/bento/

The filming took place around the December period and the first episode was slated for airing during Christmas period, so I made a Christmas theme mosaic bento. 

I also did a twist on the regular square/rectangular mosaic bento and made another version in a round tingkat bento. 

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More info on my three cookbooks  ‘Kawaii Bento’  here ,  ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ here and Kawaii Sweet Treats here!

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Rilakkuma Xmas Stocking Bento~

I still have so many ideas for Xmas Bento this year, hopefully I can make most of them before Christmas Day.

Today its Rilakkuma’s turn to be in a festive mood. I made Rilakkuma popping out of a Xmas stocking and Korilakkuma as a Reindeer and Kiiroitori too.

Did you know that there are actual plushie toys where Rilakkuma is really popping out of Xmas stocking, and in others coming out of Chimney and even dressed up as a Christmas tree or reindeer. Haha.

Japanese are always the best in being creative and kawaii.

I hope you like this Rilakkuma Xmas Stocking idea! You can also make other characters that you prefer.

To make Rilakkuma, you will need to mix the Japanese rice with some teriyaki sauce or soy sauce. I recommend the former as it is less salty.

Then shape the parts using cling, just like the technique I share in my Kawaii Bento cookbook.

The Xmas stocking is actually made from mince meat patty wrapped with imitation crabstick and decorate with some rice a Xmas bento pick.

Korilakkuma Reindeer is actually a small sausage with cheese and sushi seaweed. I forgot the red nose :P

Kiiroitori is super easy, just a hard boiled quail egg dyed yellow with details added using sushi seaweed and orange egg sheet (you can use carrot instead too).

I also prepared a simple sauteed broccoli dish and added a star shape nugget and some mixed vegetables for festive colours!

Packed this bento in my new cafe theme bento box from LOFT Japan.

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More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Winnie the Pooh Xmas Toast!

It has been sometime since I made kawaii open toast. This time it is Disney’s Winnie the Pooh!

Some of us instagrammers are getting together today for a Disney Xmas collaboration posting, so I thought that this would be a fun creation to make.

Besides, who wouldn’t love these Winnie the Pooh Xmas Toast treats?

Lets take a closer look at the kawaii toasts and the ingredients used. 

Winnie the Pooh

– Scrambled eggs, sushi seaweed, crabstick, lettuce

Tigger

– thinly sliced carrots, ham, sushi seaweed, cream cheese

Piglet

– Chicken and Picnic Ham, sushi seaweed, crabstick, lettuce

Xmas stocking

– Butter, desiccated coconut, red sausage, crabstick (white layer)

Xmas tree

– Butter, desiccated coconut, matcha jam, sprinkles, strawberry

I hope this will give you some recipe ideas to make cute Christmas theme food, snacks and bento.

If you like this Pooh Xmas Toast treats, I think you will also like the my earlier creations of Peanuts the Gang and Sanrio characters too.

Have a wonderful Thursday. Hang in there, one more day to the weekend!

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Snoopy Christmas Bento!

I have received several requests for Christmas Bento ideas, so here is another one for you. And my second christmas bento this year, after the earlier Olaf Xmas bento, see post here.

This is also a bento to thank all of you for the continual support, without which, I would not even have been able to be part of Influence Asia – the inaugural Asia’s largest social media awards show that took place on 7 Dec 2015.

Still shell shocked that I was one of the top 4 influencers under FOOD category (Singapore) alongside popular and well known influencers such as Daniel Food Diary, Seth Lui and Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow.

Thank you so much for awarding me the influencer of the year FOOD (Singapore) award. Will post an update on Influence Asia soon.

So I hope all of you will enjoy this Snoopy Christmas Bento creation. Lets take a closer look. 

Snoopy and Woodstock were made mainly from Japanese rice. The little Christmas hats were made from red crabstick layer wrapped over some rice.

The side dishes were grilled salmon fillet, blanched broccoli, lettuce and soft boiled egg.

I love how Snoopy is hugging Woodstock, content and happy~ It is after all a joyous month!

Did you also notice the red stocking made from red sausage? A simple way to add more christmas theme to your bento!

Lastly, a cup of hot chocolate at the side. Use my ‘cheat sheet’ – Snoopy Deco Latte sheet.

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Olaf Xmas Bento!

Wow can’t believe it’s already December! This has been quite a crazy but exciting year, so much so that time seemed to have zipped by.

Even Olaf is surprised that it’s almost time to don the Xmas hat for the festive season.

Hope this Olaf Xmas Bento inspires you to make Christmas bento too.

For this Olaf Xmas Bento, I made Olaf mainly from Japanese rice.

See the photo below of the shape of the rice balls. 

I tried to hold back on the amount of rice and am glad that I used less than 100g of cooked Japanese rice to make Olaf.

The details for Olaf included crabstick (red layer) to wrap the xmas hat, seaweed for the eyes, eyebrows, buttons, mouth and hands. The front teeth and eye whites were cut from hanpen (Japanese fish cake).

The side dishes for today’s Olaf bento included grilled pork fillets, cherry tomatoes, tamagoyaki, mizuna vegetables, lettuce and Frozen sausages!

Yes!! These sausages I got in Japan have Elsa the Snow Queen and Anna prints on them. So cute.

Hope you like this basic tutorial and bento post.

Have a great Olaf Xmas Month!

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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I finally made a cute hotpot creation! This time it is Christmas Hotpot Radish Art!

Why is it so, because this is a Christmas theme hotpot and I used grated radish (daikon) to create part of the character.

This was the first time I used grated radish (daikon) for foodart. I have been wanting to try it for the longest time after seeing those cute creations by the Japanese.

After grating the daikon and squeezing out the juices, I realised that half the daikon yeild only just a small lump of grated radish!! hahah. It was not even enough to make two characters.

So I used it to make the Christmas hat and winter gear. The radish/daikon texture gave it a nice wintery look too!

Plus, using just radish for the characters could be a little too much for the taste of the soup.

Sorry for the poor lighting! It was a rainy evening yesterday on Christmas eve when I prepared this hotpot dinner waiting for my hubby to come back.

This was really a super yummy hotpot dish. I prepared some miso soy based soup for this. This image was taken before I pour in the miso soup and heating over the pot. I did a quick boil of the prawns to give it a nice red cooked colour.

The delicious ingredients for this Christmas hotpot included:

• Rilakkuma mashed potato and radish art (daikon art)
• Kiiroitori mashed potato and radish art (daikon art)
• Tofu in bear shapes
• Seafood: salmon and tiger prawns
• Vegetables: cabbage, cai xin, shiitake mushrooms, Japanese spring onion (negi), carrots, corn kernels

I bought this Korilakkuma hotpot from Kiddy Land in Tokyo, so super cute right?! Heheh I love the pink colour and the cute hotpot lid. The pot is also sold on San-X online store Japan.

It was a perfect dinner meal for a cool evening of Christmas Eve.

Here is wishing all of you a joyous and happy season – Merry Christmas.

Follow my food art and bento creations on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More information about my bento cookbook title ‘Kawaii Bento’  here. 

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Christmas 2014 Bento Giveaway! Ho ho ho~~ Little Miss Bento Santa is here :)

Its Christmas, the season of giving – A little something from me to thank you for your support!

I have a total of four (4) sets of bento/kitchen related presents for you~~ To stand a chance to win please fulfill one of the following – depending on your social media platform.

I will choose winners across my platforms (blog, facebook page, instagram), so you can choose whichever platform you prefer.

Christmas 2014 Bento Giveaway – Participation

via Blog 

1. Leave a comment on this blog post:
2. (a) your favourite recipe from my Kawaii Bento Book,
3. (b) your desired giveaway (choose 1, 2 ,3 or 4),
4. (c) why you would like to have this gift
5. When you leave your comment, please include your email address so that on the back-end I can contact you if you are selected

via Facebook Post

1. Like my page on Facebook,
2. Share the giveaway post on your timeline (note that your setting has to be public so that I can verify the shared post),
3. Leave a comment on Facebook:
4. (a) your favourite recipe from my Kawaii Bento Book,
5. (b) your desired giveaway (choose 1, 2 ,3 or 4).

via Instagram

1. Follow me (@littlemissbento) on Instagram
2. Leave a comment on my Instagram:
3. (a) your favourite recipe from my Kawaii Bento Book
4. (b) your desired giveaway (choose 1, 2 ,3 or 4)

Please also read the terms below and be agreeable before taking part. Thanks!

Christmas 2014 Bento Giveaway – Terms & Conditions

• Giveaway period is from 24 Dec to 3 Jan 2015. Last day of participation is 3 Jan 2015.
• Winner will be announced by 10 Jan 2015
• Selection of winner is at discretion of organiser – me, Little Miss  Bento
• Eligibility is determined based on the required terms stated above via the various social media platforms
• Giveaway prizes are non exchangeable for cash.
• Winners will have to respond within 3 days of contact, if not a second winner will be selected.

Details of the Giveaway prizes

All the items are brand new products, with only one exception of a limited edition bento box from Japan that I managed to get off Yahoo Japan auction – very very special :) See under Giveaway TWO

ONE

• Made in Japan, kimono design bento box x 1
• Bento wax paper x 1
• My Melody Sandwich Case x 1
• Ribbon/Angel Wings bento picks x 1 pack
• Peko-chan bento baran x 1 pack
• Heart shape bento picks x 1 pack

TWO

• Limited edition Mister Donut 2-tiered bento box x 1 (important note – please note that this particular item is not new, I auction this limited edition box off yahoo japan but the bento box is in mint condition)
• Animal Friends Food Deco cutter kit x 1
• Animal mayo/sauce cups x 1 pack
• Vegetable/Fruit Silicon cups x 1 pack
• Animal bento picks x 1 pack
• Forest animal bento picks x 1 pack
• Animal cutters x 1 pack

THREE

• Hello Kitty 3-size bento boxes x 1 set
• Tupperware bento box x 2 pcs
• Sanrio mug x 1
• Hello Kitty bento picks x 1 pack
• Hello Kitty cooking spatula (metal) x 1
• Hello Kitty lunch bags x 1
• Hello Kitty coasters x 1 pack
• Hello Kitty bento cups x 1 pack

FOUR

• Made in Japan, Japanese design 2-tier bento box (as shown) x 1
• Tupperware bento box 2pcs
• Tupperware water flask x 1
• Cuddle Palz cutter x 1
• Bento cups x 1 pack
• Egg molds x 1 pack

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck and thank you for participating!

Here is wishing you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

WINNERS!

It has been so tough choosing the winners, so I picked a selection of winners across all my social media platforms, and used a randomizer to select.

The winners selected are first based on order of list, followed by platform, and by product item as I can’t have winners choosing the same giveaway set and also want to make sure that we have at least 1 winner from each social media platform.

This is the randomizer result, as you can see, the list was generated only once.

The winners are

Set 4, Dutchgirl_sandwich_bento from IG

Set 1, Mrsuntarman from IG

Set 3, Vodka from blog

Set 2, Ng Bao’e from FB

The winners above will be contacted today and should they not respond within 3 days of contact, I will select another winner from the list based on the same selection criteria.

Follow my food art and bento creations on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More information about my bento cookbook title ‘Kawaii Bento’  here. 

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This is probably my last Christmas theme bento for the year. I did a ‘twist’ on the traditional christmas log cake~ playing with the idea of creating a log cake bento.

Yes this is not a real cake. For this Christmas Log Cake Bento, I made the ‘log cake’ from sushi! And even little decorations to dress up the log cake.

I was quite happy with the final creation, I thought it did quite resemble a log cake. Except that I wished I had a larger seaweed sheet so I could make the log cake longer :P haha.

The decorations for this Christmas Log Cake Bento are little Santa Claus which I made out of cherry tomatoes (hat and body), mashed potato (face and top of the hat), cheese (beard) and seaweed (eyes).

The christmas holly were made using Japanese cucumber and crabstick.

The futomaki sushi filling include otah (local food – spicy fish cake), cucumber, tamagoyaki (Japanese egg omelette). I did a reversed roll technique where there is a layer of rice on the outside. To make it wood-like, I scattered on some katuobushi (shaved bonito / bonito flakes) and added some kanpyo strips (seasoned gourd slices).

Here is wishing everyone Merry Xmas and happy holidays!

Ho ho ho~~~

Follow my food art and bento creations on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More information about my bento cookbook title ‘Kawaii Bento’  here. 

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Here’s more Christmas mood coming your way!

Today I made Christmas Gnome Bento! This is my first time making a gnome character.

Known more accurately as Tomte or Nisse or Tomtenisse (Sweden), it is a mythical creature typically associated with Christmas and Winter Solstice. Resembling garden gnomes, Tomte are often imagined as small in size with a full beard. He is known to be a gift bearer and is able to use magic.

It is always interesting how I learn something new through my research for making character bento.

I hope you like my depiction of the Christmas Gnome.

I did wish I make the clothing dark or colored so that you can see the beard I made more clearly. But I had to leave for work and had no time to adjust.. oh well. :P

The Gnome/Tomte was made mainly of rice. For the beard I added on shaved kamaboko to create the beard-like texture. For the long red point hat, I simply wrap the riceball with the red layer of imitation crabstick (kani kamaboko).

I found some reindeer horn picks last night! Aren’t they cute~ They are actually reusable picks for cheese, but they could double up as cupcake toppers, and of course for bento!

I bought the picks from the party shop called Gift Greetings, located on the 2nd floor of Great World City shopping mall. There are a total of 18 pcs reindeer picks of 6 colours for only $9.90.

After cooking the tamagoyaki (Japanese rolled egg omelette), I simply added those bento to enhance the festive theme for this Christmas bento.

I packed this bento in my aluminium ekiben bento box.

Its finally Friday! My favourite day of the week~~ work has been crazy lately. Hoping for a more peaceful next week.

Follow my food art and bento creations on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More information about my bento cookbook title ‘Kawaii Bento’  here. 

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Ho Ho Ho~~ festive mood here!

With Christmas just around the corner, I made Gingerbread Man Bento!

I always love Gingerbread Man, or a more intimate name – Gingy!  And especially when they are depicted in animation movies or cartoons.

Today I am joining my friends from Bento Bloggers & Friends in a festive theme bento hop, and decided to make this Gingerbread Man Bento!

What is a bento hop? It is when a group of bento bloggers come together and create certain thematic lunches and we post them at the same time on our individual blogs. Then via a hop button, readers can simply move and hop from one blog to the next to see all the lunches. It is perfect for getting different ideas for making bento!

The main dish my Gingerbread Man Bento is pasta. I love the rainbow strips design of the Padonni pasta, it feels so festive. I bought them from Rakuten Japan and thought they will be great today today’s bento!

I seasoned the pasta with some olive oil, garlic, sea salt, parsley and chilli.

The Christmas wreath was made from broccoli florets, cucumber and some christmas tree deco pasta.

The red ribbon is imitation crabstick (kani kamaboko) while the Gingerbread Man character and the candy cane were made mainly of mashed potato.

I packed today’s bento in my white round enamel Noda Horo bento box.

I also packed some Laughing Cow Party Cubes, I love how they come in little cubes. Great for bento, tasting and also as fingerfood or snacks.

Now are you ready to hop?

Click on the button below and hop on to see some 17 other wonderful Christmas theme bento! Next up will be Sarah Felder from Bentoriffic :) ~ ho ho ho

Follow my food art and bento creations on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More information about my bento cookbook title ‘Kawaii Bento’  here. 

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